Surgical tool holders are used to securely and stably maintain tools in a fixed position so that a physician or physician's assistant does not have to manually hold the tools throughout the duration of the surgical procedure. Some known surgical tool holders are designed to be removably mounted or otherwise attached to a surgical tool support or a horizontal bar, which is positioned over the patient and further connects to the surgical tool support, that is fixed to the operating room table. An example of a surgical tool support is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,143,652, the content of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference thereto, or a surgical tool support of the system sold under the trademark Iron Intern® by Automated Medical Products Corp.
Tools that are commonly held by such surgical tool holders include, for example, retractors for retracting internal organs, and other structures, such as a patient's ribcage. The Stieber Rib Grip Kit® sold by Automated Medical Products Corp. is used, for instance, for retracting the ribs during abdominal surgery to retract the upper middle abdomen of a patient.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,302,843 describes a tool holder platform that can be mounted to horizontal bar that is positioned above a patient to hold a hydra, which, with various support arms, supports other tools such as a retractor to retract and maintain organs in the retracted position.
It is desirable to reduce the number of tool holders and supports that are used during a surgical procedure to decrease the amount of equipment that needs to be assembled and sterilized and also to increase the amount of room around the patient within which the physician can operate.
Thus, there is a need for a simple surgical tool holder that can hold a combination of various types of retractors as well as incrementally draw a retractor, such as for a ribcage.